Pelvic health for women is a medical area of increasing importance, at least in part due to an aging population. Examples of common pelvic ailments include incontinence and pelvic tissue prolapse. Urinary incontinence can further be classified as including different types, such as stress urinary incontinence (SUI), urge urinary incontinence, mixed urinary incontinence, among others. Other pelvic floor disorders include cystocele, rectocele, enterocele, and prolapse such as uterine and vaginal vault prolapse. A cystocele is a hernia of the bladder, usually into the vagina and introitus. Pelvic disorders such as these can result from weakness or damage to normal pelvic support systems.
In its severest forms, vaginal vault prolapse can result in the distension of the vaginal apex outside of the vagina. An enterocele is a vaginal hernia in which the peritoneal sac containing a portion of the small bowel extends into the rectovaginal space. Vaginal vault prolapse and enterocele represent challenging forms of pelvic disorders for surgeons. These procedures often involve lengthy surgical procedure times.
Urinary incontinence can be characterized by the loss or diminution in the ability to maintain the urethral sphincter closed as the bladder fills with urine. Female stress urinary incontinence (SUI) occurs when the patient is physically stressed.
The female's natural support system for the urethra is a hammock-like supportive layer composed of endopelvic fascia, the anterior vaginal wall, and the arcus tendineus. Weakening and elongation of the pubourethral ligaments and the arcus tendineus fascia pelvis, and weakening of the endopelvic fascia and pubourethral prolapse of the anterior vaginal wall, may have a role in the loss of pelvic support for the urethra and a low non-anatomic position that leads to urinary incontinence.
In general, urinary continence is considered to be a function of urethral support and coaptation. For coaptation to successfully prevent or cure incontinence, the urethra must be supported and stabilized in its normal anatomic position. A number of surgical procedures and implantable medical devices have been developed over the years to provide urethral support and restore coaptation. Examples of such surgical instruments included Stamey needles, Raz needles, and Pereyra needles. See Stamey, Endoscopic Suspension of the Vesical Neck for Urinary Incontinence in Females, Ann. Surgery, pp. 465-471, October 1980; and Pereyra, A Simplified Surgical Procedure for the Correction of Stress Incontinence in Women, West. J. Surg., Obstetrics & Gynecology, pp. 243-246, July-August 1959.
One alternative surgical procedure is a pubovaginal sling procedure. A pubovaginal sling procedure is a surgical method involving the placement of a sling to stabilize or support the bladder neck or urethra. There are a variety of different sling procedures. Descriptions of different sling procedures are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,112,344, 5,611,515, 5,842,478, 5,860,425, 5,899,909, 6,039,686, 6,042,534, and 6,110,101.
Some pubovaginal sling procedures extend a sling from the rectus fascia in the abdominal region to a position below the urethra and back again. The slings comprise a central portion that is adapted to support the urethra or a pelvic organ (i.e., a “support portion” or “tissue support portion”), and two extension portions bracketing the support portion, optionally a protective sheath or sheaths encasing at least the extension portions. Although complications associated with sling procedures are infrequent, they do occur. Complications include urethral obstruction, prolonged urinary retention, bladder perforations, damage to surrounding tissue, and sling erosion.
Other treatments involve implantation of a Kaufman Prosthesis, an artificial sphincter (such as the AMS-800 Urinary Control System available from American Medical Systems, Inc.), or a urethral sling procedure in which a urethral sling is inserted beneath the urethra and advanced to the retropubic space. Peripheral or extension portions of the elongated urethral sling are affixed to bone or body tissue at or near the retropubic space. A central support portion of the elongated urethral sling extends under the urethral or bladder neck to provide a platform that compresses the urethral sphincter, limits urethral distention and pelvic drop, and thereby improves coaptation. Similar attached slings or supports have been proposed for restoring proper positioning of pelvic organs, e.g., the vagina or bladder.
Elongated “self-fixating” slings have also been introduced for implantation in the body, to treat pelvic conditions such as prolapse and incontinence conditions. Self-fixating slings do not require the extension portions to be physically attached to tissue or bone. Rather, the slings rely upon tissue ingrowth into sling pores to stabilize the sling. See, for example, commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,382,214, 6,641,524, 6,652,450, and 6,911,003, and publications and patents cited therein. The implantation of these implants involves the use of right and left hand sling implantation tools that create transvaginal, transobturator, supra-pubic, or retro-pubic exposures or pathways. A delivery system for coupling the sling ends to ends of elongate insertion tools, to draw sling extension portions through tissue pathways, is also included. Needles of the right and left hand insertion tools described in the above-referenced 2005/0043580 patent publication have a curvature in a single plane and correspond more generally to the BioArc™ SP and SPARC™ single use sling implantation tools sold in a kit with an elongated urethral sling by American Medical Systems, Inc.
In some sling implantation kits, the needle portion has a proximal straight portion extending from the handle and a distal curved portion terminating in a needle end or tip. As described in the above-referenced '003 patent, the kit may include more than one type of implantation tool (also, “insertion tool”). The kit may include one tool suitable for an outside-in (e.g. from the skin incision toward a vaginal incision) procedure and another that may be suitable for an inside-out (e.g. from the vaginal incision toward a skin incision) procedure. Surgeons that prefer an approach dictated by the surgeon's dominant hand can select the procedure and the appropriate implantation tool. Alternately, universal implantation tools (e.g., right and left sling implantation tools each suitable for both an inside-out and an outside-in approach) may be provided.
Optionally, a detachable protective sheath may encase some portion of an extension portion of a pelvic implant. Connectors (e.g., dilating connectors) may be attached to the ends of the extension portions for connecting with and end of an insertion tool. Generally speaking, the insertion tool ends are inserted axially into the connectors and the extension portions of the implant are drawn through tissue pathways trailing the connector and needle, to draw a central support portion against the pelvic tissue (e.g., the urethra) to provide support. The connectors are drawn out through skin incisions and the implant and sheath are severed adjacent to the connectors.
Similar transobturator implantation procedures for implanting a pelvic implant to support a pelvic organ, e.g., the vagina, restored in proper anatomic position, are described in commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2005/0043580 and 2005/0065395. Alternate implantation procedures for creating tissue pathways exiting the skin lateral to the anus and implanting an implant extending between the skin incisions to support a pelvic organ, e.g., the vagina, restored in proper anatomic position, are described in commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0039453 and in PCT Publication No. WO 03/096929. Various ways of attaching a sheath end and implant mesh extension to a self-fixating tip are detailed in the above-referenced '450 patent, for example. Further ways of attaching extensions of an implant to an implantation tool are described in U.S. Patent Publication 2004/0087970.